949

Shortly after 7 PM.

Berthengam resident Mrs Woodward was with her neighbour Mrs Dickson (who saw an object on 12 October 1970 in the vicinity of the BBC TV mast at Moel-Y-Parc in the Clwydian Mountains). They'd gone up to Sodom on the west side of Moel-Y-Parc mountain. Mrs Dickson had felt strongly she should get closer to the mast.It was a very lonely spot, so she asked Mr & Mrs Woodward to go with her. They parked the car about a mile away (in a direct line) on the verge of a narrow, practically unused country road on high ground known as Sodom. Mrs Woodward said:

"So we went up to Sodom and waited for a while and then we could see them; they looked funny, you know, as if they were hanging on strings. We could see - like - 'little ones' coming out of them. I had the binoculars with me, so both Mrs Dickson and I had a look through them. But we couldn't bear to look - it was awful on the eyes. They seemed very near the mast....they were big, you know, and they seemed to 'float' on these little ones, and you could think they were on thin wires or something, hanging down."

Mrs Dickson described these appendages as 'almost like dotted lines with little balloons at the bottom. It was red and 'like the sun,' so that no-one could look right at it. It 'just appeared' away to the west coming towards the mast. On reaching it, it turned as if to go round, then disappeared. The same thing happened every three or four minutes until seven or eight had been seen. Some had these 'string-like' appendages hanging below them, attached to each 'string' was a small dull red ball.

Some UFOs 'went out' and just left the red balls before they too disappeared. Others 'burst' with a jagged blue-green flash. Mrs Dickson stated that about three - after they'd 'gone out' made a 'muffled backfire,' but not all did this. This was the more extra-ordinary because the sound took considerably longer to reach them in some cases than in others (investigator Norman Oliver estimated the distance from the mast on visiting Sodom as 1 to 1 and a half miles, this would roughly give the expected time lapse as 7-8 seconds).

Despite the nearness it was again difficult to estimate size accurately, partly because of the brilliance of the objects, but they were larger than the TV mast lights. Oliver estimated 15-20 feet in diameter. About 8 pm, the lights ceased to appear, but some fifteen minutes after the last UFO had 'gone out,' the lights of a car were seen coming up the hill. Mrs Dickson hurriedly put her car lights on and a van shot round the bend at speed, halting at the next bend and backing off the road.

All three witnesses walked towards the bend to see what was going on, (this road being normally deserted). A man got out of the vehicle, which was in fact a 'pick-up' van. He was carrying a box and began scraping a hole in dead leaves to put the box in. He then 'fiddled' with the box and a bulb lit up on top. Then, running to the van, he put a large aerial on the platform of his 'pick-up' - turning it as though lining it up, then went inside the van and stayed there. Mrs Dickson and Mrs Woodward went up and heard the man apparently broadcasting in a language sounding very much like Japanese.

As it was now after 9 pm they decided to leave and Mrs Dickson suggested it might be wise to tell the police about the man and on reaching home promptly rang them. Her report was noted and shortly afterwards they rang back to say that if she'd take them to the spot a police car would be sent to pick her up. Ten minutes later it arrived, and about half-way on the journey a message came over the intercom to say that there had been a 'military exercise' in the general area, but they'd still better continue.

They arrived at Sodom at 11 pm and the van was still there with the man inside. the police went to the van and questioned him, and on returning to Mrs Dickson they said he was a radio 'ham': his papers were in order and they were quite satisfied, but had advised him to notify them of his activities on future occasions.

Source: BUFORA Journal Vol. 4 No. 2 - Spring 1974 - Norman Oliver.